Torque 3D Development - World Editor
by Brett Seyler · 03/17/2009 (1:53 pm) · 88 comments
And now, for the big reveal...the new Torque 3D World Editor! Actually though, this is a partial reveal. What we're showing here will be the final look and feel to the World Editor, but it's only a partial representation of what's expected in the full release. Not shown here are new editors for materials, decals, creating roads and rivers, etc. In addition to all that, we may also expose some new physics functionality to the World Editor as well.
The viewport in the screens posted below do not show Tom's rewrite of the Terrain system yet either, which we expect will give us a lot greater detail and much better looking terrains.
There are a lot of hands in this project, and a lot is changing, but there were some really key people who contributed specifically to the World Editor. Internally, Matt Langley took his tools experience and contributed to the new direction and helped to prioritize the changes that would give us the biggest productivity gains. The Sickhead crew (Tom, Russell, James, and Ross) also contributed great ideas and helped with the code cleanup that let us do what we've done here.
Dave Wyand, who you all know very well for ShowTool Pro and his long history of contributing to the GG community, played a big role. There are two GG'ers most of you haven't met who've really helped shape the look, feel, and layout of the new World Editor. Steven Garcia and Jason Hetu.
Dave's Bio
"I've been an active member of the GarageGames community since 2002. I wrote the now widely used ShowTool Pro and was a key member of the Torque Constructor team. Having joined GarageGames full-time in 2006, I've been working behind the scenes on lots of brand new editors and now Torque 3D. I enjoy dressing up as a Mountie -- as all Canadians do -- and singing the Lumberjack song."
"I work on the tools side of Torque 3D, including the World Editor and GUI Editor."
Steven's Bio
"I grew up in a small city called, Corpus Christi, Tx. After a good 19 years, I picked up my stuff and moved to Tempe, Az. Then after deciding it was way too freaking hot there (seriously!); I got in touch with GarageGames and moved to Eugene for a QA internship. I worked hard in QA for a little longer than a year. Shortly thereafter I joined the Torque team as a tools programmer. So here I am today; 21 years old, loving my job, and doing my best."
"I've tackled a few projects for Torque 3D, most recently working on the World Editor. I also worked on restructuring each of our games and demo's file structures, and I'm still working on a consistency pass on all of our games and demo's."
Jason's Bio
"I graduated from the University of Oregon with a BFA in Digital Art in 2007. I started working at GarageGames this July as a Web Graphics Designer. I have since been working web graphics, print work, layouts, mockups, and engine GUI's. I really enjoy working as an artist here at GG. I also like the amount of different types of projects I have been able to be apart of since I have been here."
"I am working on updating the Torque 3D GUI's by re skinning them to have a more modern feel. I am also working with Steven Garcia to improve some usability issues with both the GUI system and the World Editor. I am also doing some visual cleanup of some of the GUI layouts and their functionality."
Without further scrolling then, here's a first look at what we've done:
Feel free to fire off questions in the comments. On the next go around (probably post-GDC), we'll show you this stuff in action, hopefully with the new terrain system and some really hot new content. More development blogs to come. This is post #14.
Torque 3D development blogs:
- Post #1 - Kickoff
- Post #2 - Apparatus and Warrior Camp
- Post #3 - Luma's racing kit
- Post #4 - Josh Engebretson and Web Publishing
- Post #5 - Pricing and Licensing
- Post #6 - Pricing and Licensing CONTINUED
- Post #7 - Wetness & Precipitation
- Post #8 - Screeen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
- Post #9 - Matt Langley and the Torque Launcher
- Post #10 - Chris Robertson and Collada
- Post #11 - Depth of Field
- Post #12 - Advanced Lighting
- Post #13 - Soft Particles
- Post #14 - World Editor
- Post #15 - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
- Post #16 - GDC Live Edition
- Post #17 - River & Road Editors
- Post #18 - Beta is UP!
- Post #19 - Light Rays, Undercity, Material Editor
- Post #20 - Mass Market Hardware
- Post #21 - Beta: Part Deux
- Post #22 - Marching Towards Beta 3
- Post #23 - pureLIGHT
- Post #24 - Lighting, Terrain, and Cloth
- Post #25 - Beta 3!
- Post #26 - Coming Soon!
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#2
03/17/2009 (2:15 pm)
Looks good, I like the toolbars at the top. Especially the terrain painting toolbar. Can't wait to see whats next. 
#3
so when can we get some sort of engine demo? ;P
03/17/2009 (2:27 pm)
OMG, are those hard-edge volumetric shadows I see? please say its so!so when can we get some sort of engine demo? ;P
#4
Great work! I love the new layout! It will definitely be a lot more usable!
I need to say that I was really hoping you'd make the Scene Tree and the Inspector dockable - ie. to the other side of the screen, so I can make more space for the inspector. (Maybe it is, I can't really tell.) Another idea is to change the order of the Inspector property groups, because usually the most important stuff is at the bottom.
@Steven Garcia: Hey man, I've been to Corpus Christi! Got stung by a big ass jellyfish. Nice memories I'll never forget! :)
03/17/2009 (2:30 pm)
*Ding* LevelUp!Great work! I love the new layout! It will definitely be a lot more usable!
I need to say that I was really hoping you'd make the Scene Tree and the Inspector dockable - ie. to the other side of the screen, so I can make more space for the inspector. (Maybe it is, I can't really tell.) Another idea is to change the order of the Inspector property groups, because usually the most important stuff is at the bottom.
@Steven Garcia: Hey man, I've been to Corpus Christi! Got stung by a big ass jellyfish. Nice memories I'll never forget! :)
#5
Is there an eight texture limit on the terrain?
Is there a cut-scene manager to go with that camera?
03/17/2009 (2:34 pm)
Lookin' good! Very clean looking UI. And I'm with Mario on the shadows.Is there an eight texture limit on the terrain?
Is there a cut-scene manager to go with that camera?
#6
03/17/2009 (2:40 pm)
Looking great love the look of the new world editor, can't wait to get my hands on the new tools. 
#7
03/17/2009 (3:02 pm)
not for sure but are the clouds the cirrus or are they volumetric? 
#8
03/17/2009 (3:13 pm)
Love the new look. I do hope there are text popups to tell me "what in the world that pic means". I have never liked grapic icons in place of text unless they have text that pops up to tell me what it is for. Some are easy to decern. Others aren't. I see several in the pics that I have no clue what they do.
#9
Where are the multiple objects placement, the predefined object placement pattern tools?
Where are the efficient tools to help populating the terrain easily?
Nothing new to my eyes.
03/17/2009 (3:23 pm)
Hmm, a new interface doesn't make the tool more efficient.Where are the multiple objects placement, the predefined object placement pattern tools?
Where are the efficient tools to help populating the terrain easily?
Nothing new to my eyes.
#10
@Konrad: Space should not be a problem when dealing with the window'd editors. We have pretty neat solution in place right now that should definitely fit those needs. =)
@viKKing:
"Not shown here are new editors for materials, decals, creating roads and rivers, etc." - Straight from Brett's blog(sentence #3 to be exact). Those should answer your concerns.
But what you've said has me a little worried. If these editor changes are nothing new to your eyes; then you either must in my computer or inside my mind!!! =P
03/17/2009 (4:03 pm)
@Mike: I definitely agree. Tooltips should popup and tell you vital information about the tool (Name of tool, Shortcut key to tool(if there is one)).@Konrad: Space should not be a problem when dealing with the window'd editors. We have pretty neat solution in place right now that should definitely fit those needs. =)
@viKKing:
"Not shown here are new editors for materials, decals, creating roads and rivers, etc." - Straight from Brett's blog(sentence #3 to be exact). Those should answer your concerns.
But what you've said has me a little worried. If these editor changes are nothing new to your eyes; then you either must in my computer or inside my mind!!! =P
#11
03/17/2009 (4:31 pm)
Looks like there are a few good additions, and a re-hash of the existing stuff. I think the tool should have been more complete before this blog was written. Still, it's great work guys. Looking forward to more. 
#12
No that is a plain skybox image.
@Mario Selvaggio:
huh what are you talking about?
@Steven Garcia:
I think what Vikking is saying is from the looks of the could screen shots it just looks like a re-skin of the same editor. and While I would not got that far I wold say this was prolly not the best post Brett has done so far. Basicly the post tells almost nothing about new features only who is responsible. And I have to say while I thank you guys for making the editor. Without knowing what the features are I don't care if John Carmack himself wrote it. It isn't gonna sell me.
But with that being said I'm sure it will be quite the fancy editor. I just think that you should have held off posting till there was something to actually show as far as a new feature list and screen shots or movies of them in action.
But I guess you are trying to build up hooplah for GDC.
PS: I hope that the editor stays more up to date than Showtool Pro has. hopefully none of that code has tainted T3D
03/17/2009 (4:33 pm)
@Kory:No that is a plain skybox image.
@Mario Selvaggio:
huh what are you talking about?
@Steven Garcia:
I think what Vikking is saying is from the looks of the could screen shots it just looks like a re-skin of the same editor. and While I would not got that far I wold say this was prolly not the best post Brett has done so far. Basicly the post tells almost nothing about new features only who is responsible. And I have to say while I thank you guys for making the editor. Without knowing what the features are I don't care if John Carmack himself wrote it. It isn't gonna sell me.
But with that being said I'm sure it will be quite the fancy editor. I just think that you should have held off posting till there was something to actually show as far as a new feature list and screen shots or movies of them in action.
But I guess you are trying to build up hooplah for GDC.
PS: I hope that the editor stays more up to date than Showtool Pro has. hopefully none of that code has tainted T3D
#13
@James: You asked for a look at tools. This is what we're doing. I realize you want to see something more finished and definitively demo'd, but it's not finished, and I don't want to demo it much before it is. Sorry if you're disappointed by the blog though. I could have written up something much more in-depth, but as you say, time is short and everyone here is really focused on GDC, so I didn't have time to give this the attention it probably deserves. I'm only okay with that because I know that when we do demo the actual product, it's going to be really killer.
03/17/2009 (4:43 pm)
Thanks all. I'm really happy with the work done on the World Editor. It's a lot more than we expected to be able to accomplish in the time we've spent. Nothing you see here is really "new" functionality, just a better, cleaner, more usable presentation. The new editors (see my 3rd sentence) WILL be very useful though. If you add to this the new genre kits people are working on (both announced and unannounced) as well as Tom's Forest Kit tech, you're going to be working with one powerhouse SDK in Torque 3D.@James: You asked for a look at tools. This is what we're doing. I realize you want to see something more finished and definitively demo'd, but it's not finished, and I don't want to demo it much before it is. Sorry if you're disappointed by the blog though. I could have written up something much more in-depth, but as you say, time is short and everyone here is really focused on GDC, so I didn't have time to give this the attention it probably deserves. I'm only okay with that because I know that when we do demo the actual product, it's going to be really killer.
#14
03/17/2009 (4:48 pm)
@James: The shadows in the second screenshot appear to have distinct solid edges, different from the standard gradient-edge shadows. 
#15
03/17/2009 (5:35 pm)
@Mario, you did see the "Advanced Lighting" blog post, no?
#16
That is just the Daylight system "couple blogs back I think" Dynamic but not volumetric. Volumetric shadows are those cast through a volume such as fog or clouds or some other type of volume.
no worries Brett. Done a great job thus far can't please everyone.
03/17/2009 (5:40 pm)
@Mario Selvaggio:That is just the Daylight system "couple blogs back I think" Dynamic but not volumetric. Volumetric shadows are those cast through a volume such as fog or clouds or some other type of volume.
no worries Brett. Done a great job thus far can't please everyone.
#17
I can't wait to see the other editors :) ... I'm liking the new look/features of T3D so far.
03/17/2009 (6:33 pm)
Yeah, it appears to be mostly a reskin to me so far... but, that's not to say that it's unwelcome. I definitely like this new look, much cleaner and nicer to look at.I can't wait to see the other editors :) ... I'm liking the new look/features of T3D so far.
#18
03/17/2009 (7:20 pm)
It "appears" more elegant and maybe.. intuitive? Hard to tell obviously, but I like what I see so far. I anxiously await more info on this. 
#19
@Everyone - Remember that IRC Hour is happening this week again on Thursday. We will be discussing the World Editor improvements (more than just a reskin).
03/17/2009 (7:33 pm)
Great job to all who worked on this. It's certainly made my job a lot easier.@Everyone - Remember that IRC Hour is happening this week again on Thursday. We will be discussing the World Editor improvements (more than just a reskin).
#20
@Ben: No eight-texture limit on terrain. The Terrain Painter has changed a bit since that screenshot. I'm using about a dozen at the moment.
@Stephen: As Brett mentioned, the Forest Kit will be available for populating environments with objects ("painting" them in, so to speak, and not just for foliage)... all working perfectly with T3D so far. And if I may add my experienced opinion, this new interface has made working in Torque much more efficient.
I've been working with all the new editors recently, and I must say that as an artist, I'm delighted with the attention to editors and world-building in general. I used to dread having to deal with the tools in TGEA. You'll all notice a huge difference in usability.
03/17/2009 (7:48 pm)
@Kory: Yep, parallax and normal maps are working on the terrain... all working nicely within a well-design editor. We here at Sickhead are putting it all to use on an upcoming T3D demo.@Ben: No eight-texture limit on terrain. The Terrain Painter has changed a bit since that screenshot. I'm using about a dozen at the moment.
@Stephen: As Brett mentioned, the Forest Kit will be available for populating environments with objects ("painting" them in, so to speak, and not just for foliage)... all working perfectly with T3D so far. And if I may add my experienced opinion, this new interface has made working in Torque much more efficient.
I've been working with all the new editors recently, and I must say that as an artist, I'm delighted with the attention to editors and world-building in general. I used to dread having to deal with the tools in TGEA. You'll all notice a huge difference in usability.
Torque Owner Kory Imaginism
team innovative imaginations
keep it up guys, seriously top notch work!
Got a question: will the new terrain have parallax normal mapping on it? And will it be accessed through the editor?